FakeItTil

Pretty much. They could try to work around it with him in a different role but I don’t see it working or CBS trying. It’s why it’s annoying they’ve been doing the “Will Jason retire?!” since season 1. He’s not retiring until the end of the show and that’s if they retire him then. They really should have been more vague with is age and given him younger kids instead of him being talked about as old since the early days of the show. Boreanaz still looks good enough that they could have dodged his age more and, you know, a stressful job and exposure to the elements are hard on your skin.

Way too much drama in that episode, even for this show. You can't have all 20 stupid things they're doing dominating in one episode. All it did was highlight that the team should be broken up, Sonny and Davis has been stupid, Jason should be retired and in therapy, and Ray shouldn't be promoted even in a decent episode for him. I can already smell the Clay drama coming again, too.

We're going to get Ray's financial problems 2.0, aren't we? The guy has a real self destructive streak and it probably just popped up again. He might flame out trying to become an officer, Jason might have a meltdown if he does (which will set Ray off) or he might spiral on his own because he hates it. Of course, it raises the question of why he'd get a promotion or become an officer again, but whatever. It's consistent if nothing else. Naima is an idiot for immediately agreeing, tbh. She should know that Ray is volatile and doesn't make the best decisions. I mean, he's about 6 months or so removed from almost destroying their marriage. A sudden change in his career path and plans to buy an expensive house should sound all the alarms. I kind of just want the Jason arc to come to a head already. So many people can see he's not right but are brushing it off or doing the bare minimum. Considering Clay is so invested in Swanny, you think he'd at least be taking it seriously. They've been ineffectively nudging at this since day 1 of the show and it can't keep getting magically patched until the next time. There might be some realism in it but I don't think that's been the intent of the show as a slow burn. Someone's mental health needs real treatment on this show. Emma was good in this episode, but in way over her head as always. Ash's character growth has been both good and surprising... hopefully he doesn't revert back. Clay now has the most interesting "home" life on the show between that relationship, what could happen with the new captain and his TBI awareness crusade. The show's turnover rate on people who aren't main characters means the new captain won't last all that long but I actually want him to be one of the good guys. Sonny not telling Davis that Ray knows is going to blow up in his face one way or another.

Yeah, but they really didn't care about the innocent child Ray killed or him lying about his health. Jason was the only one who was shown to be pissed about the shoulder and the kid after it happened, in a rare reasonable thing from him. Then Alana died and he didn't care anymore. At least that one general was coming down on them last season and it wasn't bs on his part. I have a hard time believing anyone in that group would be getting a promotion considering their constant drama. It's not like they fly under the radar with it and it involves clashing with people higher up the food chain often enough. If they're too super special to be broken up, everyone still knows they're a mess even if they only know about half of it. I can barely accept that Jason is still left to his own devices, never mind his equally bad bff getting a promotion and his own team. It's just manufactured drama that doesn't make the most sense and ends with Ray staying or returning to his Bravo 2 spot.

Honestly, with how concussions have historically been handled by so many people, that part isn't too surprising to me unless the military is that different. Who knows how many of his concussions have been diagnosed and not written off as just having his bell rung before getting to a doctor. How many important people around him think concussions aren't that big of a concern or only care if it's a particularly bad one. The whole being near an explosion thing would make me think there would be a medical evaluation. iirc, there have been instances of things like CTE in military personnel and they think being near explosions is one of the causes, but part of diagnosing a concussion is the person with said concussion being honest about their symptoms. Jason's ass probably wouldn't be. It's Ray. Hider of his own injury for months and "I know you're not right but I'm not going to do anything more than make a couple of comments to you," about Jason's last concussion.

It's a really cinematic show and has delivered some beautiful shots with beautiful locations. They almost got broken up last season but didn't. They killed what's his face and the general who hated them (had rightful criticisms) couldn't touch them after. How exactly Davis and Mandy ended up where they did needs explaining. I'm happy they're both still around because I like them and don't want all of the regular actresses ditched, but how? I bet they ignore it or don't go into detail.

It should at least be an interesting season for what they're trying to do. The voice overs could be good or could end up dragging. I think what we saw in Ep 1 needs some tweaking because there's something off about his voice, or that will be explained. The mental health part and aging could be good or it could be incredibly frustrating if they screw it up. They've both been part of the Jason character since early on in the show and haven't been truly addressed. Partially because I think it's been an end of the show or DB wants out thing, but at this point I think it also needs to happen for the character to continue on with a shred of believability. That being said, I fully expect Jason's mental health to be put to bed by the midpoint of the season or the end of the season at the longest, and for Ray to have his own version of it or other crisis because that's how they roll. Parts will be handled well and others won't, but the show definitely has an ambitious streak. It was a good, lighter season opener to start things off before things get darker, imo. Some nice humour and setting up where the characters are now.

Lol, they’re really just going to ship the kids off. If he’s selling the house to pay for Emma’s tuition and the son’s boarding school they’re truly writing a stupid character. At least he didn’t go blow up at Shaw when he had the chance to but Jason is pretty old and experienced for a character to be learning those lessons now. Ray. Whatever. They rushed to resolving his arc for the season. At least it’s over because I hated it. Idk how anyone is supposed to believe him when he says he’s good. The Clay and Swannie arc has been the strongest part of the season for me. Ash managed a real honest to god human moment out of it and everything. The best out of the action storyline the show has done and I don’t expect it to be beaten. They were completely unrecognizable to me cleanly shaven. It was trippy. Mandy. Meh. They’ll fix it in ep 1 or she’s been written out. If she’s written out they’ll have lost a lot of actresses this season. Comparable quality to season 1 for me. Could be better, and frustrating because the bones are there, but it’s solid enough.

It’s really awkward yet funny when a show is trying to make you worry that the team will be broken up and you think it should. There’s an allowance for fiction and there’s people being blatantly dysfunctional. The show dedicates a lot of time to making the argument that some need to retire and the others need to be sorted out. Like, they’ve even set up some of their futures. Jason goes into whatever that job offer was, Emma can be free and he raises his son. Clay doesn’t return and keeps going down this path; I guess Stella returns. Ray should be at home trying to salvage his marriage. Sonny has Davis and however that would work. He could go either way, he has something other than the team now but could also go behave somewhere else. It’s not the first time Sunny specifically has done that, is it? Been a borderline mutinous distraction. I think he’s had a worse one and Jason literally proposed mutiny once. Ray’s story remains dumb. It should be a great episode for the actor and instead it’s Ray throwing a tantrum about a terrified woman praying. Apparently no faith makes Ray insane. I was going to say Jason came off pretty well in this episode but then I looked up who directed it. I’m sure he’ll be back to his OTT normal in the next episode.

They don’t get that you don’t need constant, melodramatic conflict with their personal lives. Presumably Jason and Alana were fairly stable until she hit her limit, but the show has never shown that. Ray’s relationship is a mess, idk how Naima is supposed to forgive him regardless of his reasons why or if he had sex with this other woman. He’s been ridiculous. Somehow Sonny’s secret relationship with Davis is the healthiest relationship shown now. They do this weird thing with therapy and even talking to someone about their feelings where it’s never seriously followed through with and is usually scoffed at. Yet it’s clearly needed, they’re nudged/pushed towards it and it’s briefly positive when they deign to do it. I’m not going to say it’s unrealistic but it’s frustrating to watch. They've done Ray so dirty as a character. He started really well (probably my fave to start) and now he’s throwing his marriage away and spiraling at work over some pos’ soul. Maybe I don’t have the religious background to get it but I just don’t care. The man was a monster in life so whatever. Ray has inevitably killed people and denied them their proper religious death ritual or burial experience before that. The crisis of faith came out of nowhere, Ray isn’t doing anything to help himself and it’s not well explored. Until Clay got hurt Jason was supposedly on this sweet deployment and his grand accomplishment during that time was being talked to about a job. The best was when she’d done work on whatever it was about school and he couldn’t be bothered to check his email. The college saga continues to make zero sense and was a mistake.

I think it’s that and part of it is because they’re used as opposition to their careers. That’s their main function as characters and you know unless an actor wants out they’re all staying on the team. It’s just pointless back and forth. All they exist for is supporting and opposing/distracting from the careers of main characters. If you’re going to have that homelife component then you need to give those characters real lives. They’ve also lost two of the female characters from the start of the show and I’d argue Stella had the most character work out of anyone not on the team. I can find sympathy for Emma’s because it’s a ludicrous situation, but it’s pretty purely situational sympathy because she’s barely a character. And I’m weirded out how they kind of plopped her into a modified Alana role like that.

Hmm. I believe we are. I expect Boreanaz to outlast the show. If he were physically at or near a limit I could see Jason being killed or removed from action, but I don’t think he is. I don’t see the show lasting long enough for that to change and the man seems happy to be on shows for the long haul. The great irony is of course that they were semi-handed a good storyline with alana’s actress leaving. The parent everyone expected to die out of the two being the surviving parent is interesting. They just had zero intention of exploring that with him at home and decided some clumsy college storyline was the way to go. Emma isn’t a well developed enough character for that to land well for me. It would make sense narratively but we’ve never seen enough of her to go in depth and have it carry much weight. Alana definitely reached her limit with how long or how much she would sacrifice with him and kids don’t choose to be born so they didn’t sign up for thta lifestyle. It makes a lot of sense that the parent-child relationship would be strained. It’s just that Emma wasn’t much of a character and then got shoehorned into a partial Alana replacement role in Jason’s life without adding much depth to her. They might be trying to say something or solve the single parent problem with Emma wanting to go to NYC and Mikey wanting to go to... hockey boarding school? Both kids wanting to be out of his immediate orbit.

I think it’s a great potential storyline and premise for a show but doesn’t work if you have a network show you’re hoping will run for years and you won’t kill the character. The plan doesn’t get adapted accordingly and then it has to be ignored or fixed. Some shows will kill main characters but they’ve been got to commit to a timeline. It’s a lazy way to create tension and for some reason it’s their favourite one. Alana wants him to retire, he gets a serious injury, Alana dies leaving him a single parent, he’s getting old, he could use more money and it’s only been 2 seasons. He’s probably spent half of the show circling around retirement that either will never happen or will happen in the final episode. Jason is abrasive enough that the character should be fine to generate conflict to create tension around himself. The danger aspect should be generating that tension and suspense more than anything because the writers aren’t great with the homelife parts. If they had to have one false flag about him retiring it should have been around Alana dying. It should have spanned more episodes of him at home or a time jump and then been wrapped up for real with some solution that can be ignored. Like the grandparents conveniently swooping in and Emma not having this college arc. It’s like Ray hiding an injury one season and this crap right now. Pick something else the second time around. It makes the character look awful that he’s on his second round of hiding a problem in about a year. They could have extended how everyone else dealt with him lying about his shoulder and putting himself and others at danger for months. Or that he’s got to be the calmer head for the team.

It only makes sense if she’s desperate to get away from reminders of her mother or wants to avoid being locked down as the Alana substitute. Something like that or related to what’s happened. Mainly, I think it’s just to fascilitate the “will Jason retire?” question and show how hard his homelife is. They shouldn’t play with that question now, imo. The answer is just that he should. Dude is a single parent now, his team is a mess, he’s got issues and his body has to be near the end anyway. And he had that tbi or whatever. Don’t bring attention to it, and he has the chance to earn a tonne more. I find focus on their home lives isn’t the most interesting and accidentally makes them look bad far too often.

My sister was around Emma’s age when our father died and I guess I was around Mikey’s. So it doesn’t exactly shock me that something like that is all screwy because people don’t know how to handle things like that. He also hasn’t been around all that much for either kid to see how he’s been effected. He really shouldn’t have left those kids that quickly for a multitude of reasons but one of them is that they’re not seeing how he’s coping or how approachable he is about it. They already gave him permission to go back right after their mother died. Crazy considerate of his mental state and a sacrifice. She’s a brat, but she’s a 17 year old who lost her primary parent, had the other one seemingly unable to live a life that isn’t highly dangerous and then got running their lives put on her. It’s at least realistic in that it would be a mess. The weird thing is that there doesn’t seem to have been any kind of plan one way or another. My mother wasn’t big on, y‘know, parenting and I knew those things beforehand. Presumably people involved with the show went through this process with plans around what their family could and would do. It’s just a stupid storyline that should have ended in “this is how much I can afford to help you and that’s it.” Help with the more complicated financial things and keep an eye on deadlines. If it wasn’t feasible then it wasn’t feasible and that’s life. It’s not interesting to watch because it makes so little sense. I think her going to a local college was Jason’s plan as soon as Alana died and apparently he’s almost totally unable to help in that area for reasons. I doubt he has a plan if Emma isn’t around to raise Mikey. It definitely looks bad for the character that he keeps conveniently being unhelpful, though. Bizarre writing for a protagonist.